The amendment to defund Planned Parenthood has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives:
The House has approved a Republican proposal to block federal aid for Planned Parenthood.
The 240-185 vote on Friday is a victory for anti-abortion forces led by Indiana GOP Rep. Mike Pence. He says taxpayer money should not go to groups that provide or promote abortion.
The Senate is decidedly more pro-abortion so the House version is unlikely to survive in that chamber. Nevertheless, it’s a small step in the right direction.
(Via: Secondhand Smoke)
February 18th, 2011 | 6:13 pm
Doesn’t all spending have to be authorized in the House in the first place? So can’t they just “not authorize it” next time around?
February 18th, 2011 | 9:08 pm
Good news.
February 19th, 2011 | 3:02 am
Pentamom, true, but it is likely the spending would be attached to something necessary and get through that way. It’s how most of the junk gets through.
February 19th, 2011 | 3:34 am
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February 19th, 2011 | 10:19 am
The times they are a-changing.
We are supposed to believe in a myth of progress that says moral, aka supposedly reactionary, bigoted “Archie Bunker” resistance is inherently irrational (hence the caricature) and therefore always fades over time.
But resistance to abortion is not fading, it’s growing.
I believe that no law can be forced on a democratic people by any Power From Above – whether a king or a judge. Only consensus can achieve true legitimacy in the realm of law. (In other words, misusing authority to just skip over the part where you actually address and resolve objections might work in the short term, but not in the long term.)
February 19th, 2011 | 11:28 pm
How do you propose we fund the non-abortion part of Planned Parenthood? You know the millions that gets spent on pap smears, breast cancer screening, and other basic forms of health care for poor women? You can’t just throw out the baby with the bath water. Or, you could and that would make you a hypocrite and an elitist.
February 20th, 2011 | 7:52 am
How do you propose we fund the non-abortion part of Planned Parenthood?
We could send them to real doctors?
February 20th, 2011 | 9:14 am
When will conservatives see the importance of other issues than abortion? Like pre-natal care that Planned Parenthood does, for poor folks.
Jesus himself never mentioned abortion; but he talked and did lots, about helping and healing the poor medically.
For conservatives, only the embryo is a human being worth considering: live mothers, and their children, are not.
The “Christianity” of conservatives, is unbelievably narrow and absurd.
February 20th, 2011 | 2:31 pm
Easy. You spend those funds to expand services already on offer via programs like Medicaid, or on grants to faith-based organizations which offer medical ministries in poor communities.
Care is already available to poor women via Medicaid, and it might be even more widely available were our tax dollars directed at rewarding, essentially, organizations which provide care without also offering abortion. If we are serious about reducing the number of abortions in this country, then we need to stop funding abortion providers. Period. That doesn’t mean that we can’t fund, instead, other medical-service organizations (which mostly exist on the local level, and which are largely private and faith-based), so that they can expand the amount and kinds of health-care support which they offer to the poor. These organizations are also truly non-profits, which Planned Parenthood is not.
And should Planned Parenthood decide to go out of the abortion business, this would, in my view, change the whole landscape with regard to their eligibility for funding. As a parent I don’t much like their model for sex education, and I am not myself a believer in the benefits of artificial contraception, but aside from the baby-slaughtering thing, I don’t have strong objections to their offering to the public services which any ordinary doctor or clinic might offer.
The baby-slaughtering thing, though, is a problem, and so is the idea that that’s just the cost of doing poor-woman-health-care business.
February 20th, 2011 | 8:49 pm
“How do you propose we fund the non-abortion part of Planned Parenthood? ”
I’m sure most of us would be reasonably happy to do it as soon as they stop doing abortions. Until then, women can get basic health care of the type you describe from other sources, through other funded means.
February 21st, 2011 | 2:26 pm
“Pentamom, true, but it is likely the spending would be attached to something necessary and get through that way. It’s how most of the junk gets through.”
By whom? The people who just voted to defund are the ones in control now. All spending must originate in the House, so who would attach it with whose permission and why couldn’t the attachment be removed by amendment?
I’m not so much arguing as feeling like I’m missing something.
BTW, I realize that the thing just voted on was to block an already approved appropriation; I only meant that at least in future budgets, there’s no reason why funding should continue even if this effort with respect to current spending is unsuccessful.
February 22nd, 2011 | 9:15 pm
We can at least be hopeful, that the senate will echo, the House, here.
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